The roughnose wedgefish (''Rhynchobatus cooki'') is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

in the Rhinidae family. It is found in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

(off

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

) and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are open

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

s, shallow seas,

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

estuarine An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

waters, and coastal saline

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') a ...

s. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

. Despite having been known for more than a decade, it remained undescribed until 2016.Last, P.R., Ho, H.-C. & Chen, R.-R. (2013). ''A new species of wedgefish, Rhynchobatus immaculatus (Chondrichthyes, Rhynchobatidae), from Taiwan.'' Pp. 185-198 in: de Carvalho, M.R., Ebert, D.A., Ho, H.-C. & White, W.T., eds. Systematics and biodiversity of sharks, rays, and chimaeras (Chondrichthyes) of Taiwan. Zootaxa, 3752 (1): 1–386.Last, Kyne & Compagno (2016). A new species of wedgefish Rhynchobatus cooki (Rhinopristiformes, Rhinidae) from the Indo-West Pacific. Zootaxa 4139(2): 233-247. This is a relatively small species, reaching up to in length. Adults are greenish-brown above; young have white spots. The fish is named in honor of Sidney F. Cook (1953-1997), a shark fisheries biologist, and a leader in shark conservation.

Sources

roughnose wedgefish Taxa named by Leonard Compagno Taxa named by Peter R. Last Taxa named by Peter M Kyne roughnose wedgefish Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Rajiformes-stub